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Contact: Bruce Robinson MS F665, Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, NM 87545 Voice (505)667-1910 FAX (505)665-8737 robinson@lanl.gov |
The Porous and Fracture Flow team of EES-5 is active in research and applications in many areas concerning subsurface flow and transport. Projects are characterized by a wide spectrum of time and distance scales, ranging from hydrothermal circulation at mid-ocean ridge spreading centers, contaminant transport at environmental restoration sites, high level radioactive waste disposal, containment of underground nuclear tests, and pore scale processes.
Codes and Computational Tools
| The Porous and Fracture Flow team develops, modifies, and supports sophisticated numerical simulation codes for subsurface transport processes (FEHM and TRACR3D). These flow and transport codes interface with the GEOMESH and X3D grid generation tools which aid in the construction of complex multi-material finite element and finite difference computational grids. The codes model three-dimensional, time-dependent, multiphase, multicomponent, nonisothermal, reactive flow through porous and fractured media. Capabilities also include the ability to accurately represent complex 3-D geologic media and structures and their effects on subsurface flow and transport. |
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| Table 1:Major Computer Codes in Porous and Fracture Flow Section | |||
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FEHM (Finite Element Heat and Mass)
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TRACR3D
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![]() Figure 1. Steady state saturation in a site scale model of Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The area of this model covers a 1.7X4.2 square mile area. Variation in saturation very closely mirrors variations in rock properties. Model calculations like this are used for evaluating the suitability of Yucca Mountain as a potential repository for high level nuclear waste. |
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![]() | Figure 2. Comparison of a two different gridding methods to model the same geometry. The structured grid made up of uniform size bricks must stair step to follow non-horizontal layers. The layer thickness is also not accurately represented. The unstructured tetrahedral grid on the right exactly matches the geometry of the input data. |
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